Editing

Censoring Roald Dahl

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Today’ Telegraph devotes two entire pages (and there is even more on its subscribers only internet site as well as three paragraphs of editorial) to a detailed description of the changes made to Roald Dahl’s books by sensitivity editors under the supervision of Puffin, a Penguin Random House imprint. Ultimate control resides in Netflix which bought the books in 2021 for $686 million. Puffin is the largest publisher of childrens’ books globally. The article is written by Ed Cumming, Genevieve Holl-Allan and Benedict Smith.

““Words matter,” begins the discreet notice, which sits at the bottom of the copyright page of Puffin’s latest editions of Roald Dahl’s books. “The wonderful words of Roald Dahl can transport you to different worlds and introduce you to the most marvellous characters. This book was written many years ago, and so we regularly review the language to ensure that it can continue to be enjoyed by all today.”

“Put simply: these may not be the words Dahl wrote. The publishers have given themselves licence to edit the writer as they see fit, chopping, altering and adding where necessary to bring his books in line with contemporary sensibilities. By comparing the latest editions with earlier versions of the texts, The Telegraph has found hundreds of changes to Dahl’s stories. Language related to weight, mental health, violence, gender and race has been cut and rewritten. Hundreds of changes to some of the best-loved children’s books ever written. Even Quentin Blake’s illustrations do not make it through the sensitivity reading unscathed. Earlier editions of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory include three sketches of Mike Teavee with 18 toy pistols “hanging from belts around his body”, but the guns have been scrubbed out by 2022, as well as a related sentence.

“Puffin and the Roald Dahl Story Company made the latest changes in conjunction with Inclusive Minds, which its spokesperson describes as “a collective for people who are passionate about inclusion and accessibility in children’s literature”. Organisations such as Inclusive Minds have sprung up to help publishers navigate these newly choppy waters. Alexandra Strick, a co-founder of Inclusive Minds, says they “aim to ensure authentic representation, by working closely with the book world and with those who have lived experience of any facet of diversity”. To do this, they call on a team of “Inclusion Ambassadors” with a variety of “lived experience”. She says they mostly work with authors writing now, but are sometimes asked to work on older texts.

“When it came to children’s books, Matthew Dennison (a biographer of Dahl) says Dahl didn’t care what adults thought as long as his target readers were happy. “‘I don’t give a b—-r what grown-ups think,’ was a characteristic statement,” Dennison says. “And I’m almost certain that he would have recognised that alterations to his novels prompted by the political climate were driven by adults rather than children, and this always inspired derision, if not contempt, in Dahl. He never, for example, had any truck with librarians who criticised his books as too frightening, lacking moral role models, negative in their portrayal of women, etc,” he continues. “Dahl wrote stories intended to kindle in children a lifelong love of reading and to remind them of the childhood wonderlands of magic and enchantment, aims in which he succeeded triumphantly. Adult anxieties about political niceties didn’t register in this outlook. This said, although Dahl could be unabashed in offending adults, he took pains never to alienate or make unhappy his child readers.””

My view is that Puffin and Inclusive Minds have got it largely wrong. I grew up reading classic stories that were absolutely enchanting and also included violence and bits of racism and misogyny. I could have done without the latter two items, but in retrospect, I didn’t pay much attention to them, nor was I brainwashed by them. Children like stories with strange elements, and for this reason, I think that focusing on appearance, colour, weight, health, gender, and violence (up to a point) is actually counter productive. The story becomes too bland. I have a suspicion that most of the ‘Ambassadors’ of Inclusive Minds, while they may have some ‘lived experience’, none of their lived experience includes reading to six to thirteen year old children.

Creating a Book Front Cover

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Mt latest novel, Nebrodi Mountains: The Billionaire and the Mafia, recently reached the stage where the front cover design had to be finalised. I suggested to the publisher’s art department that it could be a picture of the real Nebrodi Mountains modified to make them mysterious, and I attached the following as a sample:

Nebrodi Mountains

The art department came back to me with the following. “I am attaching two cover design samples for your review. I thought that, rather than just have a lovely mountain landscape on the cover, that we shoot for something a bit more dramatic. I keyed off of the subtitle: “The Billionaire and the Mafia,” and selected a figure that might represent the mafia and a figure that could represent the American billionaire. I purposely made the “mafia” figure darker and more malevolent. Please let me know if either of these cover designs will work for you.”

and

To this, I responded, “I like the first one better that the second.  The brown colouring in the second looks unexciting, and the billionaire is too young. The first one has possibilities, if the man is a handsome, black billionaire, early 50’s.  His slightly superior attitude is good.  Could his suit be a blue blazer, his shirt be whiter, his tie dark red, and can you fit in a gold watch?  The mountains need to be largely green – no snow cover – and I think they should look real and take up more of the picture.

The artist responded with: “I am attaching a new jpg proof for your review.”

My comment on this was: ” We’re getting there! I think the man is too young, and I don’t think he would have a scar on his cheek.  Attached are some photos that fit my picture of the billionaire. I think all of them are copyright, but I can tell you who the copyright owner is, if you’re interested. The mountains in the background need to have more character (visible details) and look more like mountains than hills. (I sent him three sample pictures if black men.)

The artist responded: “Here’s a revised cover proof…

My comment was, “I understand that the orange colour scheme is thematic, but it doesn’t work for me. Could you do the mountains in natural green and the sky in natural shades of grey/white with threatening storm clouds and perhaps a stroke of lightening? With this change, the subtitle, The Billionaire and the Mafia, should probably be in black, same font as ‘Nebrodi Mountains’.

He responded: “Here’s the latest incarnation…”

And I said, “It’s excellent! I assume you’ll eliminate the watermark across the man’s face.”

So, that’s the cover.

The Seven Deadly Sins of Novelists (According to Editors)

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A post with the above title was published on the Writer’s Digest bog on October 18, 2018.  I was interested because until recently I had not used a first class editor, and when I did, I found it to be an entirely different experience.  The authors of this piece are freelance professional editor, Pam Johnson and novelist Steven James, whose “award-winning, pulse-pounding thrillers continue to gain wide critical acclaim and a growing fan base,” his website claims.

Steven James and Pam Johnson

Their Seven Deadly Sins are:

1. Lack of Communication: Failing to specify expectations.

When I submitted my manuscript the editor, I highlighted my own concerns and reservations about the novel.  This gave him something meaty to work on.

2. Sloppiness: Not submitting your best work.

“Poor punctuation, grammar, spelling and so on is so distracting to an editor that she will struggle to concentrate on the story she’s been hired to edit.”

This seems obvious.

3. Stubbornness: Refusing to change your course of action.

The editor suggested a major rewrite which involved a change in the narration and a different role for a minor character.  It was, I admit, a difficult pill to swallow, but once I started on it, I could see what a huge difference it would make.

4. Impatience: Not realizing that writing a book is a long process.

I was certainly guilty of this when I started writing, and, unfortunately, the self publishing process makes it easy hurry things through to completion.  When an agent and the publishers editor are involved and both of them have a financial incentive to produce the best quality novel, the process becomes more thorough and careful.

5. Passing the Buck: Expecting your editor to write the book.

This expectation is lazy, wishful thinking.  With benefit of hindsight, I probably should have asked the editor to review the re-written manuscript, but I was hoping that the next edit would be done by my agent and the one after than by the publisher’s editor,

6. Testiness: Getting upset with your editor when she’s only trying to help.

Fortunately, my editor takes the view that ‘criticism is the enemy of creativity’, so he always had reasons for any major changes suggested.  This helped me to latch onto his point of view.

7. Throwing in the Towel: When the going gets tough, the author quits.

“Writing a book is a long, difficult process—and editing can be equally strenuous. You need to be patient and work hard. Even if your current book doesn’t make it into Barnes & Noble, you will learn so much from writing it. Maybe the experience will lead to a future bestselling novel. And the sense of accomplishment when you’ve completed your work truly is priceless.”

My view, as well.

Review: Authors A. I.

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In my post the week before last, I introduced Authors A. I. as a new tool to help authors improve their fiction writing, and I said I would try it out.  Last week, I went on the Authors A I website, paid my $89 for a single review, and an hour later I received an email from Marlowe – the name of the persona who has the artificial intelligence – attaching her report on the draft of my latest novel, for which I’m seeking an agent.

Authors A. I. doesn’t permit subscribers to sent out copies of Marlowe’s reports, but they would be happy if I send out copies of graphics from my report.  Unfortunately, I can’t find a way to copy and paste the graphics, so, I’ll describe them.

The first graphic is a plot of narrative arc and plot turns against the percentage of the novel from 0% – the beginning to 100% – the end.  For my novel, the narrative arc in green is a complete sine wave, starting at its low point, going through a positive peak, a negative peak and ending on a positive peak, which is accurate.  The plot turns, in purple, starts very negative, goes through two positive peaks, turns negative and trends upward through twp peaks to end positive.  I don’t disagree with this but the commentary in this section is general and is not specific to my novel.

The second graphic is narrative beats, a series of ten fairly evenly spaced vertical purple lines, each marked with the percentage of the book at which it occurs.  Beats are turning points where conflict is resolved or introduced.  The commentary says that beats should be evenly spaced and about ten.  I have to confess that’s the way my novel turned out; not the way I designed it.  This section quotes from the text of my novel where Marlowe says the beat occurred.

The third graphic is pacing and shows the relative pacing versus the length of the book.  For my book, there are five peaks of relatively high pace and four valleys, two of which are very low.  Again, the peaks and valleys are marked with percentages, and the text at those points is printed out.  The commentary is general and not specific to my novel.

The fourth graphic shows the personality traits of four of my characters in terms of the top five of nine trails each character exhibits.  This section is useful in observing whether the characters are different enough from each other and are they as intended?

The fifth graphic is dialogue vs. narrative.  My novel is 58% dialogue in purple and 42% narrative in green.  This is heavier in dialogue than I would have wanted, but at least the dialogue is evenly spaced throughout the book.  A graphic of a multitude of purple and green lines shows how each is used throughout the book.  Two characters act as narrators in the novel, and much of the story is revealed between their quotation marks.

The graphic on major subjects in the book is disappointing.  It shows the most important subject – at 5.47% – as Important Decisions and it descends through nine other subjects to Description of the Body at 2.47%.  The major subjects of the book are: death/dying, faith, family and vocation.  None of these makes the list.

There is a section on explicit language.  I said ‘damn’ five times.  A section on cliches says I used ‘hands on’ five times.  Repetitive phrases says I used  ‘to be a’ thirty times.  This could be interesting data.

There is a graphic on sentence length vs. number of sentences of that length.  In popular fiction, most sentences are two to ten words long.  My average sentence length is 12.82 words.  Popular fiction typically has a complexity score of 2.0 to 3.0  My novel has a complexity score of  2.76, and my most complex sentence scores 7.19. My reading grade score is 7.18.  To put this in context, you need to have a look at https://contently.com/2015/01/28/this-surprising-reading-level-analysis-will-change-the-way-you-write/

The graphic on use of adverbs shows that I (disappointingly) used ‘very’ 121 times (out of 81,000 words), and similarly for adjectives, I used ‘good’ 149 times.  There is a graphic on verb choice and use of the passive voice.  This, though, requires use of the find function in Word to see whether ‘is’ is part of the passive voice.

There is a table which shows the frequency of various forms of punctuation.  There is no spell check in this version of Marlowe.

I feel that my $89 were well invested in at least provoking my thinking and stirring me to action on a couple of points.

Marlowe is under development.  Hopefully, later versions will produce more manuscript-specific comments on the metrics used.

A Ghostwriter Talks

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An article, The Ghostwriting Experience, written by Melanie Votaw, appeared in the JanFeb, 2020 issue of the IBPA independent.  I found it interesting and quote from it below.

Melanie Votaw has been a full-time professional book author, ghostwriter, editor, and book coach for nearly 20 years. She specializes in self-help books and book proposals as a coach, ghostwriter, and developmental editor, although she has also written memoirs.

Melanie Votaw

Ms Votaw says, “As a ghostwriter, I’ve heard a lot of misconceptions about my profession. “What? You mean the person whose name is on the cover didn’t write the book?”

Or: “Oh, I couldn’t possibly use a ghostwriter; then, it wouldn’t be my book.”

I usually respond this way: Doesn’t it seem like a lot to expect someone to be an expert in their field and also an expert in constructing a book? After all, ghostwriter/editors like me have spent years honing our craft.

Of course, one of the reasons for these misconceptions about ghostwriting stems from another common misconception: that if you can write a good sentence, you can also write a book. Many authors are soon relieved of that notion, discovering that a lot more goes into writing a book than proper grammar and punctuation.

That’s what happened with one of my recent ghostwriting clients (I’ll call her Lucinda). “When I was starting to write my book, and I heard other people were using a ghostwriter,” she told me, “my impression was ‘Oh, then you’re not writing the book.’ So while I felt a little funny at first, you took my words, you found my voice, and you wrote it better than I would have written it. But it isn’t filled with your ideas; it’s filled with my ideas. At the end of the day, I feel comfortable it’s my book.”

Besides those who don’t feel equipped to write a book without help, there are authors who simply don’t have the time to do all the work. They still have to convey the information to the ghostwriter, but that’s less time-consuming than writing every word themselves.

Lucinda discovered, however, that it was more economical in the long run to work with a ghostwriter. “I have a girlfriend who’s written two books now. She does all of her own writing, but she has spent way more than I have on edit after edit after edit,” she says. Lucinda had one other editor review the manuscript after the ghostwriting was complete. “When I finally gave it to my publisher, she said she’d never seen such a clean manuscript,” she adds.

As Lucinda found out, a ghostwriter is more than “just” someone who organizes the information into chapters. They can help an author 1) determine if their book idea is viable, 2) devise an outline, 3) decide whether to self-publish or try for a traditional publishing contract, 4) create a book proposal, if desired, and 5) navigate publisher options, book covers, and marketing, among other services. They can also help an author stay sane during the exceptionally vulnerable process of putting their work on the line.

So, how do you choose a ghostwriter and ensure a successful collaboration? Here are some tips:

1. It’s important to thoroughly vet the ghostwriter’s background and testimonials, of course, but it’s also important to feel that your ghostwriter “gets you.” Do they understand your subject matter and what you’re trying to communicate? Are you simpatico? You can discern this through your initial discussions, but, more often than not, it’s a gut feeling.

2. Once you’ve made your choice, trust your ghostwriter’s advice. Be wary of defensiveness. You certainly don’t have to agree with every one of your ghostwriter’s opinions, but you’ve hired this person for their industry expertise. So, if you decide to go against their advice, make sure it’s for a good reason.

3. Don’t expect your ghostwriter to nail your voice right away. Give them some time to “sound” like you on the page, and allow them to provide rough, unpolished drafts in the beginning.

4. Be careful of the opinions you receive from people outside of the publishing industry. They know what they like, and they know if something they’ve read isn’t clear. But they don’t usually know how a book should be constructed or how to diagnose issues in a viable way.

. . .

5. Most of the time, the ghostwriter remains “ghostly” with perhaps only a mention within the acknowledgments (often described as an editor). Other times, a ghostwriter’s name appears on the cover as a coauthor, such as “By Dr. So-and-So and [or with] Ghostwriter’s name.”

Ultimately, the ghostwriting process is an opportunity for you to marry your expertise with the expertise of a publishing industry professional. There’s no shame in doing so, whether the reason is due to lack of skill or time. What’s most important is that you get an excellent book that represents you well in the marketplace and provides you with the ultimate outcome you’re after.”

Can Artificial Intelligence Help Write Better Novels?

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In a post written by J D Lasica, the Chief Experience Officer and Co-Founder of Authors A. I., on July 9, 2020 on the Writers Digest website explores the above intriguing idea.  Mr Lasica is the author of Catch and Kill.

J D Lasica

Excerpts from his post appear below.

“Of all the sectors that artificial intelligence is disrupting—finance, health care, transportation—the creative art of fiction writing seems like the least likely candidate to be impacted by A.I.

But A.I. has arrived like a gift-wrapped box on the doorstep of the author community. Should we open it up? Or do we need to worry that what’s inside will put authors out of a job?

It turns out that a new fiction-savvy bot is not out to take the place of the next Hemingway, Steinbeck, or Atwood. Nor is it out to displace editors or other humans.

The A.I. program, from the tech startup Authors A.I., was built to help the next generation of authors write great books, attract large readerships and maybe even hit the bestseller lists. And, yes, to help authors’ own careers.

Many maverick fiction authors start writing their first manuscript thinking they’ll write a book that defies the rules and blazes a completely new path—wholly original, conventions be damned. They imagine writing a work of such staggering genius, as Dave Eggers might put it, that it could give birth to an entire sub-genre all its own.

Marlowe, the name the founders gave to the A.I., is adept at identifying the shortcomings of a fiction manuscript. She is programmed to send authors down the proper path. In the end, novel writing often involves a right way and a wrong way to tell a story. You don’t want to end your romance novel with a murder-suicide, no matter how brilliant your prose.

That’s where artificial intelligence can help. Marlowe won’t write any passages for authors. But she has studied a large number of books that hit the bestseller lists and she’s reverse-engineered the components of popular novels that resonated with readers.

The best novels are those that meet certain reader expectations for their genre while delivering the story in a fresh and original way. That insight is liberating, because it frees authors to write books that delight readers instead of wasting time raging against literary conventions or the strictures of traditional editors.

The first area where A.I. can help with storytelling is a sort of big-picture eye-of-God look at the plot structure and spine of a story.

Many of the best stories follow a certain playbook (“formula” is such a nasty word), with a beginning hook, an inciting event that propels the protagonist into the middle build, a midpoint shift that turns the story in an entirely new direction, an assortment of reversals and revelations, and a climactic buildup leading to an ending payoff.

Marlowe can identify these major plot points and tell at a glance whether they’re positioned correctly. She will point out the specific passage or line of dialogue where these major plot turns occur.

Authors who use Marlowe are running each draft of their manuscripts through her as they reposition chapters and major action scenes.

It generally takes authors time and dedication to master the art of pacing. A story ebbs and flows. Authors may start out their novel in media res, with a big action scene, or at a more languid pace, focusing on world building or foreshadowing or fleshing out characters.

But even veteran authors have a hard time assessing whether they’ve properly spaced out their peaks and valleys—the spots where readers turn pages quickly or slowly. The most successful writers vary the pace of their story to provide variety, and also to provide relief to the reader. No one wants to read a thriller with 60 chapters of nonstop action and no letup. One of Marlowe’s most popular features is a visualization of a novel’s pacing.

Marlowe takes the pulse of major characters and lets authors know if they’ve done a good job providing enough variety through the actions they take. (As Henry James said, plot is the act of putting characters under pressure.) Unlike feedback from critique groups, who are unfailingly polite, Marlowe has no hesitation in pointing out that a hero is too passive or a villain is way too much of a nice guy.

This A.I. breaks down the ratio of dialogue versus narration in a work and compares the percentages to that of bestselling novels. Several authors have found, after using Marlowe, that they hadn’t realized they had tipped too far into dialogue when narrative summary was called for.

It turns out that subject matter is a major determinant of whether a book becomes a bestseller—not the specific topic or theme of the book so much as the importance of streamlining the story so only one or two major subjects dominate instead of a lots of tangential side plots that dilute the main storyline.

This is a tendency seen in a lot of debut novels where the author is tempted to draw from life experience and cram everything under the sun into an overstuffed narrative. William Faulkner put it well: “You must kill all your darlings.” With that awareness in mind, Marlowe charts out top subject matters and their presence in the novel.

Her cliché finder tells authors about that bird in the hand, but it’s up to them to decide if they should avoid clichés like the plague or are striking the right balance for readers.

She plays copy editor, too, pointing out not just misspellings, but your authorial tics—repetitive phrases, overused adjectives and adverbs, as well as use of the passive voice—and provides the reading grade level and complexity score for the book.

Fiction authors have seen the marketplace change radically in the past decade with the dawn of ebooks, self-publishing and, now, a boom in audiobooks.

It’s time to add artificial intelligence to the list.”

Having looked at the Authors A. I. website, and checked out their pricing, I’m inclined to give the service a try.

Creating and Sustaining Suspense

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There is an article on suspense in the Writer’s Digest online blog by Steven James, one of the Writer’s Digest editors, that was recently featured but dated nearly seven years ago.  He discusses six techniques for crating and sustaining suspense, which I think are quite good.

“1. Put characters that readers care about in jeopardy

Four factors are necessary for suspense—reader empathy, reader concern, impending danger and escalating tension.

We create reader empathy by giving the character a desire, wound or internal struggle that readers can identify with. The more they empathise, the closer their connection with the story will be. Once they care about and identify with a character, readers will be invested when they see the character struggling to get what he most desires.

We want readers to worry about whether or not the character will get what he wants. Only when readers know what the character wants will they know what’s at stake. And only when they know what’s at stake will they be engaged in the story. To get readers more invested in your novel, make clear: 1) What your character desires (love, freedom, adventure, forgiveness, etc.); 2) what is keeping him from getting it; and 3) what terrible consequences will result if he doesn’t get it.

Suspense builds as danger approaches. Readers experience apprehension when a character they care about is in peril. This doesn’t have to be a life-and-death situation. Depending on your genre, the threat may involve the character’s physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual or relational well-being. Whatever your genre, show that something terrible is about to happen—then postpone the resolution to sustain the suspense.

2. Include more promises and less action.

Suspense happens in the stillness of your story, in the gaps between the action sequences, in the moments between the promise of something dreadful and its arrival.

If readers complain that “nothing is happening” in a story, they don’t typically mean that no action is occurring, but rather that no promises are being made.

Contrary to what you may have heard, the problem of readers being bored isn’t solved by adding action but instead by adding apprehension. Suspense is anticipation; action is payoff. You don’t increase suspense by “making things happen,” but by promising that they will. Instead of asking, “What needs to happen?” ask, “What can I promise will go wrong?”

Stories are much more than reports of events. Stories are about transformations. We have to show readers where things are going—what situation, character or relationship is going to be transformed.

3. Keep every promise you make.

In tandem with making promises is the obligation of keeping them. The bigger the promise, the bigger the payoff.

When stories falter it’s often because the writers didn’t make big enough promises, didn’t fulfill them when readers wanted them to be fulfilled, or broke promises by never fulfilling them at all.

Here’s a great way to break your promise to the reader: Start your story with a prologue, say, in which a woman is running on a beach by herself, and there are werewolves on the loose. Let’s see if you can guess what’s going to happen. Hmm … what a twist this is going to be—she gets attacked by the werewolves! Wow. What a fresh, original idea that was.

How is that a broken promise? Because it was predictable. Readers want to predict what will happen, but they want to be wrong. They’re only satisfied when the writer gives them more than they anticipate, not less.

Make big promises.  Then keep them.

4. Let the characters tell readers their plans.

I know, this seems counterintuitive. Why would we want readers to know what’s going to happen? Doesn’t that give the ending away?

I’m not talking about revealing your secrets or letting readers know the twists that your story has in store. Instead, just show readers the agenda, and you’ll be making a promise that something will either go wrong to screw up the schedule, or that plans will fall into place in a way that propels the story (and the tension) forward.

Simply by having your characters tell readers their schedules, you create a promise that can create anticipation and build suspense:

•         “All right, here’s what I have lined up for the rest of the morning: Follow up on the fingerprints, track down Adrian, and then stop by the prison and have a little chat with Donnie ‘The Midnight Slayer’ Jackson.”

A story moves through action sequences to moments of reorientation when the characters process what just happened and make a decision that leads to the next scene. We do this in real life as well—we experience something moving or profound, we process it, and then we decide how to respond. Problem is, in those moments of reflection, a story can drag and the suspense can be lost. During every interlude between scenes a promise must be either made or kept.

And, if you resolve one question or plot thread (that is, you keep a promise you made earlier), introduce another twist or moral dilemma (in other words, make another promise).

When a story lags it’s almost always because of missing tension (there’s no unmet desire on the part of the characters) or not enough escalation (there’s too much repetition). To fix this, show us how deeply the character wants something but cannot get it, and escalate the story by making it even more difficult to get.

5. Cut down on the violence.

The more violence there is, the less it will mean.

A murder is not suspense. An abduction with the threat of a murder is.

The scariest stories often contain very little violence.

And, of course, different genre elements dictate different means of suspense. In a mystery you might find out that a person was beheaded. This occurs before the narrative begins, so the focus of the story is on solving the crime. If you’re writing a horror story, you’ll show the beheading itself—in all of its gory detail. If you’re writing suspense, the characters in the story will find out that someone is going to be beheaded, and they must find a way to stop it.

Reader expectations, and the depth and breadth of what is at stake in the story, will determine the amount of mystery, horror or suspense you’ll want to include. Nearly all genres include some scenes with them. As a writer, it’s vital that you become aware of how you shape those sequences to create the desired effect on your reader—curiosity, dread or apprehension.

Also, remember that valuing human life increases suspense. Because readers only feel suspense when they care about what happens to a character, we want to heighten their concern by heightening the impact of the tragedy. Show how valuable life is. The more murders your story contains, the more life will seem cheap, and if it’s cheap, readers don’t need to be concerned if it’s lost.

6. Be one step ahead of your readers.

Here are some ways to amp up the suspense:

→ As you develop your story, appeal to readers’ fears and phobias. (Phobias are irrational fears, so to be afraid of a cobra is not a phobia, but to be afraid of all snakes is.) Most people are afraid of helplessness in the face of danger. Many are afraid of needles, the dark, drowning, heights and so on. Think of the things that frighten you most, and you can be sure many of your readers will fear them as well.

→ Make sure you describe the setting of your story’s climax before you reach that part of the story. In other words, let someone visit it earlier and foreshadow everything you’ll need for readers to picture the scene when the climax arrives. Otherwise you’ll end up stalling out the story to describe the setting, when you should be pushing through to the climax.

→ Countdowns and deadlines can be helpful, but can work against you if they don’t feed the story’s escalation. For example, having every chapter of your book start one hour closer to the climax is a gimmick that gets old after a while because it’s repetitious and predictable—two things that kill escalation. Instead, start your countdown in the middle of the book. To escalate a countdown, shorten the time available to solve the problem.

→ As you build toward the climax, isolate your main character. Remove his tools, escape routes and support system (buddies, mentors, helpers or defenders). This forces him to become self-reliant and makes it easier for you to put him at a disadvantage in his final confrontation with evil.

→ Make it personal. Don’t just have a person get abducted—let it be the main character’s son. Don’t just let New York City be in danger—let Grandma live there.

No matter what you write, good prose really is all about sharpening the suspense. Follow these six secrets, and you’ll keep your readers up way past their bedtime.”

Deciding on the Point of View

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There is an article of the Writer’s Digest website, ‘Writing Multiple Points of View’ by Wendy Heard which caught my attention because the novel I’m completing now will have two narrators.  Ms Heard holds a Bachelor’s degree in Studio Art, emphasising painting, and a Master’s degree in Education.  She is a member of Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, and Mystery Writers of America, is a contributor at Crimereads.com, and co-hosts the Unlikable Female Characters podcast.

Wendy Heard

Ms Heard says, “When a story calls for more than one narrator, it’s exciting (at first). In a way, starting a new book is like diving into a new relationship—a potentially abusive relationship with a high-maintenance narcissist who demands you spend every moment obsessing about them.  I’ve now been in two multiple points of view relationships, one with The Kill Club, a thriller released December 2019, and one with She’s Too Pretty to Burn, a YA thriller out in 2021. Going through the rounds of revisions on these two projects taught me a lot, and I hope what I’ve learned is useful to you.  That said, let’s dive into some suggestions I have for writing multiple POV projects.

  1. Determine your primary POV.

Even if you have just a couple of narrators, one of them will likely carry the theme of the book and serve as the dominant POV. I spent a lot of time figuring this out with She’s Too Pretty to Burn, where I had dual narrators with almost the same amount of real estate. If you’re not sure who your primary narrator should be, consider the logline for your book in terms of the following structure: “X person must do Y or [some bad thing] will happen.” For example, “Harry Potter must defeat Voldemort or the wizarding world will be ruined forever.” Sometimes putting your logline into this sentence frame will help determine who’s carrying the central conflict in the story.  In general, I’ve heard from many different people that it helps a reader orient themselves in a multiple POV story when the primary narrator goes first and gets Chapter One.

  1. Distinguish your characters’ voices.

First, figure out if you’d like to differentiate the POVs by making one first person and the other(s) third person, one past tense and the other(s) present tense, one limited and the other(s) omniscient, etc. Going back and forth between limited and omniscient in third person is high art, and I admire anyone who can pull it off.

Next, consider the characters themselves. If you have a character who is musical, they’ll likely be quite auditory and their descriptions of settings will include sounds as much as imagery. If you have a character who’s younger, their internal cultural references, comparisons, and slang will be different than an older character. If one character is a doctor, they might notice physical aspects of the people around them more than, say, a glass blower.

I’d also recommend journaling a list of sayings and phrases used by each character. As you do, consider making each character’s thinking style vastly different. One person can be more poetic, with longer sentences containing more clauses. Another character might be a more direct person who tells it exactly like it is with no embellishment. The more work you do here, the more authentically each of these voices will read.

  1. When working with many points of view…

First of all, I recommend pouring a stiff drink and staring at your computer moodily. This is the only way to commence writing more than three points of view.

Some stories must be told from many perspectives. In this case, you’ve already determined who your protagonist will be, so now you’re trying to figure out how to fit all the other perspectives into the story. I was in this position for The Kill Club, and I developed a strategy that helped me stay organized: I considered the main character’s POV as the primary and all the other ones a secondary POV I called a “composite” POV. When I was outlining the book (see next bullet), I had one list of plot points and story beats for the protagonist and one for the composite, and I plugged narrators in based on who would be the best narrator for the story beat in question.

  1. Beat sheets and outlines for multiple POVs

I work with Save the Cat beat sheets, but I know there are many other outlining tools in use. Regardless of methodology, a question arises: How do I know which character should tell which part of the story?

I’d advocate for giving the largest story beats to your protagonist. If the heart of the book happens away from your hero and with someone else, the question begs to be asked: why not make that other person the hero?

Some other things I’d advocate for doing in your protagonist’s POV: major relational beats, plot-altering twists (unless the point of the twist is that you’re showing something that will add suspense if hidden from the protagonist), thematic beats, and moments that could contribute to character development if given to the hero.

If you have dual POVs, with both being almost equally weighted, I’d recommend huge plot points such as the inciting incident, the midpoint, and the dark night of the soul happen in both perspectives. If possible, the two narrators could be in scene together when these moments happen, or, if they’re carrying parallel narratives, such as in past/present tense books, they could each experience separate major plot points.

It’s important to remember that all POV characters need to go through a full plot, and the character growth needs to be well-developed in each, even if they only get a handful of chapters. By designating someone as a point of view character, you’ve said they are crucial to the reader’s experience of this story. This brings me to my final piece of advice.

  1. Sometimes, maybe it’s not necessary.

I wrote a book that started out as multiple POVs and ended up a single-narrator project. Sometimes, after you’ve sat with the outline for a minute, you might realize that being inside the head of one of these characters, or some of them, is not necessary for a reader to fully experience this story. While it’s hard to reconsider the structure of a project once you’ve fallen in love with it, just like in relationships, it’s important to be open to all possibilities in those early drafting stages. Readers can sometimes find themselves bored or alienated by extra points of view.”

This discussion was interesting to me as it was suggested that having two POV’s in the novel I’m currently working on, instead of a single narrative by the protagonist, could increase the tension in the story.  This turns out to be correct, particularly as the two POV characters are very different, but they share a common interest in telling the story.

Creative Writing Classes

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I have decided to take two courses on creative writing at City Academy in London.  One is a full week, full day (10-5) class in advanced creative writing.  In addition to providing the students with a sharper writing tool kit, it covers the specific skills of novel writing, script writing (film or television) and play writing.  There is a good deal of emphasis on creative techniques and structure.  There were four instructors on this course, all of them freelance writers, some of them take commissions from the BBC and one is a children’s book writer.  All of us (six) on this course were impressed with both the knowledge of the tutors and their skills in transferring the knowledge to us.  We completed many specific writing assignments in class, ranging from five to twenty minutes, and we would read out our work to the class.

The other class is on Wednesday evenings from 6:30 to 9:00 for six weeks.  This course is taught by the head of the creative writing department, who is script writer for Casualty on BBC1.  As such, he has a flair for drama.  This course is designed to help students progress or design a piece of creative writing.  There are five students in this course; I am the only male (aside from the tutor).  One woman in her early 30’s has finished writing a middle grade children’s book about a child who is disappointed in her own achievements.  A woman in her 50’s has a musical which has been performed somewhere locally and involves repercussions from Vietnam.  These two are making final corrections.  A woman in her late late 30’s has some ideas for a novel about two female friends, one of whom has a father who has strangely reappeared.  And the other student, in her 20’s, is trying to develop ideas for a novel.  And I am there with a completed manuscript about a man who is preoccupied with fears of his death.  Agents say it is well written, it has three good reviews, but nobody has said ‘yes’, and one agent said that in needs more intensity.

So I outlined the novel last Wednesday, including the concern about intensity.  I also presented my list of ideas for ramping up the intensity.  Almost immediately, the tutor said, why don’t you make the relationship between the protagonist and his grandniece the centerpiece of the novel, having them tell the story rather than the protagonist alone.  At first, I thought, Oh, God another rewrite!, but then it began to make sense.  The current structure of the novel is around a timeline which tends to dilute the intensity of the relationships.  But, if the two narrators cover and debate each of the relationships in depth, in series, it will be much more intense.

So next Wednesday, I’ve been asked to bring a revised outline to the class.  What this involves is taking all the events of each relationship, and grouping them together sequentially, rather than allowing them to be strung out along the time line.

This will, of course involve some re-writing, some new material and deleting some existing material.  But I’m looking forward to it.

Breaking Grammar Rules

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The Digital Reader had a piece on their website entitled: “Infographic: 15 Grammar Rules You Learned in School That You Can Break With Impunity”

 

I’ve picked out some of the more interesting ones below.

  1. Never end a sentence with a preposition:  This one is from the ark and is probably the most broken rule because of how formal sentences become when the rule is followed.  For example: “From where do you come?”
  2. Know the difference between who and whom:  Who refers to the subject of the sentence and whom refers to the object.  In colloquial speech, it is common, but incorrect to ask; “Who did you invite?”
  3. Never describe a singular noun with a plural pronoun: An exception could be, “Somebody left their hat on the train” – when the gender of the somebody is unknown.
  4. Use the correct verbal agreement for a collective noun:  Collective nouns describe groups of things acting as a single identity: swarms of bees; teams of people – “The team is going out to lunch”.  “None of us is invited to the wedding.”  Right but sounds wrong.
  5. Do not split infinitives: Infinitives are verbs in their most basic form, usually preceded by to.  But the following is OK: “She tried to quickly think of an awesome sentence.”
  6. Avoid vague pronouns:  For example: “When Jess picked up her baby sister, she was so happy.”  Was it Jess or here sister who was made happy?
  7. Use That and Which correctly:  That and Which are both relative pronouns that introduce clauses; the difference being That introduces a non-specific clause, and Which introduces a specific clause.  A specific clause specifies the identity of the noun to which it refers; a non-specific clause only provides more information.
  8. Use the correct personal pronoun:  Me, myself and I all describe oneself but cannot be used interchangeably.  I is the subject of the sentence; me is the object.  Myself is a reflexive pronoun when the subject and the object are the same.  Example: “Sue smiled at herself in the mirror.”
  9. Use Farther for physical distance and Further for figurative distance:  Example:  “We had run farther today to catch up with out teammates who were further along in the training schedule.”
  10. Use Fewer and Less correctly:  Fewer is an adjective used to quantify nouns that can be counted; whereas Less is an adjective used to quantify intangible nouns that can’t be counted.  Example@ “Fewer coins, but less money.”
  11. Into is directional, In To is a verb phrase:  Example: “Breaking into the museum” should be written as “Breaking in to the museum.”

And three rules that should never be broken:

  1. Apostrophes:  Apostrophes show possession and contractions and that’s all!
  2. Affect vs Effect:  Affect is a verb; Effect is a noun.
  3. Don’t make us new words, unless your name is Shakespeare.  Some linguists believe that English has up to 300,000 distinctly usable words.